MiDesktop

MiDesktop is classical computing at its best - no frills, plain but useable.

About MiDesktop

MiDesktop (formerly MiDE) is a fork of KDE version 1.1.2, the last release of the 1.x series. Since then, it's been ported to the Osiris toolkit (which is a fork of Qt 2.3.2).

The goal is to modernize MiDesktop without filling it with a bunch of features and bloat, retaining the essence of 90's and early 2000's computing without the pain points.

Important: MiDesktop is still in the early stages and as such should be considered experimental software, in that it could have serious bugs or security flaws that have not been discovered yet. Use at your own risk!

Building MiDesktop

System Requirements

A Linux system with glibc and an X11R7+ compliant display server such as XWayland or XOrg. Wayback has been tested. XLibre has not been tested. XNest is permitted for some testing but behaves erraneously and bug reports for XNest-specific issues will generally not be accepted.

You will need the following libraries and their development files/packages:

• libjpeg
• libtiff
• libpng
• Osiris Toolkit 2.4.4 or newer
• CMake
• libxcb/libxkb
• GCC 12 or newer
• gettext

I'm sure I'm missing some stuff there - this list isn't exhaustive and will likely be updated as I have time to test and double check it (as well as make distribution required package lists for building).

Note: CMake may complain about not finding libxcb/xkb and/or libtiff. As long as these are installed and compilation is successful, you can safely ignore these warnings (this is a bug in the CMake build system).

Compiling and installing MiDesktop

MiDesktop is built in two steps. First, the libraries are built, then the base.

MiDesktop should always be installed in the /opt prefix. It cannot be installed alongside any other KDE version unless it is installed in /opt - this will be fixed in a future release.

libs:

cd libs
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/kde1 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
ninja
ninja install # May need to be run with sudo or as root
cd ../..

Building the base section for Debian:

cd base
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/kde1 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
ninja
ninja install # May need to be run with sudo or as root
cd ../..

Building the base section for Ubuntu:

Ubuntu noble (this may affect other Ubuntu releases, but has not been tested on anything other than noble) ships a version combination of CMake and Ninja that exhibits a weird bug preventing all MOCs from generating on the first try: You can either use Ninja and just run it more than once after the missing MOCs, or, more preferably, you can change the build generator as below. While Ninja is the preferred build generator, there is generally no technical reason to not use a different generator, other than Ninja being faster with cleaner output in most cases.

cd base
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/kde1 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
make
make install # May need to be run with sudo or as root
cd ../..

utils:

cd utils
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/kde1 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
ninja
ninja install # May need to be run with sudo or as root
cd ../..

Post-install configuration

Generally, no post-install configuration is required now. There may be cases where the build system (CMake) generates an incorrect configuration file: please file a bug report if you run across this.

Testing and bugs

Well, it's known that MiDesktop has a lot of bugs and quirks. Bug reports are very welcome at https://centre.libranext.com/libranext/mide/-/issues

Workarounds for some known issues

Some known bugs can be worked around without too much difficulty.

Firefox (and Firefox ESR)

The issue: Firefox expands to infinity off the edge of the screen.

The fix: In the Firefox window, go to Main menu -> More Tools -> Customize Toolbar

In the lower left-hand corner, check the box for Title Bar. You may need to do this from a different desktop environment first, but the setting is retained.

GDM3 fails to log in to MiDesktop session or logs in and logs back out with "Authentication Error" message and partially frozen afterwards

This appears to be related to GDM3 running in Wayland mode and expecting the session to register, which MiDesktop does not. There is not actually an authentication error as far as I can tell.

The temporary workaround is to disable the Wayland backend.

Edit the file /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf and uncomment the line WaylandEnable=false

You may need to restart the GDM service and/or reboot your system for this to take affect.

Should be at least partially fixed in 1.2.0~pre3 or later.

Known issues

• Some menus on the lower taskbar do not remain open when clicked, i.e. opens and closes immediately
• KMenuEdit does not display any menu contents and is functionally unusable at the moment
• MiDesktop is unaware of multi-monitor setups.
• Scrolling in applications using the mousewheel does not work currently
• Firefox will maximize its size infinitely - it appears to not know where the actual edge of the screen is. This appears to only be an issue on multi-monitor setups. On single monitor setups, Firefox works normally
• Google Chrome is unable to maximize its window size. This is probably related to the Firefox bug.
• No wallet on startup
• No sound support
• I know I've forgotten quite a few. This software is old, the fact that it works at all on modern Linux is fantastic.
• Please submit bug reports if you run across issues.